The Nuclear Family Has Failed – by Yoram Hazony – Re: How the Formerly Extended, “Traditional” Family Was Better for Individuals and Societies

The Nuclear Family Has Failed – by Yoram Hazony – Re: How the Formerly Extended, “Traditional” Family Was Better for Individuals and Societies

(Link): The Nuclear Family Has Failed – by Yoram Hazony 

Excerpts:
May 13, 2022

When people talk about the structure of the family, they often find themselves arguing for or against the “nuclear family”, which consists, on most tellings, of a father and mother, with perhaps two or three children in their care for the first 18 years of their lives.

These children are then supposed to leave the house, move somewhere far away, and make nuclear families of their own.

Contemporary conservatives are especially inclined to embrace this image of the family, although it is not entirely clear why.

The “nuclear family” is not the same as the traditional Christian or Jewish family that existed before the two World Wars. On the contrary, the nuclear family is closer to being an invention of industrialisation and the 20th century.

And there are good reasons to think that this form of family is, in fact, a failed experiment, one that has done immeasurable harm to almost everyone: to women and men, children and grandparents.

The time has come for us to consider retiring the ideal of the nuclear family, and replacing it with something that looks more like the family of Christian and Jewish tradition.

What is the traditional family?

How Everyone Got So Lonely by Z. Heller (Article Discusses Incels, Sexism, Being Single By Circumstance, other topics)

How Everyone Got So Lonely by Z. Heller (Article Discusses Incels, Sexism, Being Single By Circumstance, other topics)

(Link): How Everyone Got So Lonely

Excerpts:

The recent decline in rates of sexual activity has been attributed variously to sexism, neoliberalism, and women’s increased economic independence. How fair are those claims—and will we be saved by the advent of the sex robot?

By Zoë Heller
April 4, 2022

[The article opens by going over all the information I’ve been posting to this blog the last several years: more and more Americans (and people in other nations as well) are remaining virgins or celibate, and some are opting out of dating and marriage.
Some are doing so out of choice – with some they may want to have sex and/marry but are still single or celibate due to circumstance.]

… The chief driver of this so-called “sex drought” is not, as one might expect, the aging of the American population but the ever more abstemious habits of the young. Since the nineteen-nineties, the proportion of American high-school students who are virgins has risen from forty-five per cent to sixty per cent.  …

[The article covers many of the explanations various studies and authors have been citing to explain the lack of sexual activity, especially among the young – everything from more people in their 20s and 30s living at home with their parents, to porn, to video games.]

… For the British economist Noreena Hertz, the decline in sex is best understood as both a symptom and a cause of a much wider “loneliness epidemic.”

In her book “The Lonely Century” (Currency), she describes “a world that’s pulling apart,” in which soaring rates of social isolation threaten not only our physical and mental health but the health of our democracies.

Singles: Don’t Let Valentine’s Day Wreck Your Life By Lisa Anderson

Singles: Don’t Let Valentine’s Day Wreck Your Life By Lisa Anderson

For a Christian-penned essay, this is pretty good (the link, with excerpts, is below).

I usually find most Christian- authored material about singleness to be off mark, but this was pretty good.

A word from me about Valentine’s Day, that echoes what the author below says:
If you’re single, want to be married, but still find yourself single into your 30s, 40s, or older, Valentine’s Day can be a painful and/or frustrating holiday.

With the passage of time, though, as I came to accept my singleness (I had wanted to be married for years, but it never came to pass), as more and more time went by, Valentine’s Day stopped bothering me.

Maybe the same will be true for you, if you’re single, don’t want to be single, and find Valentine’s to be a difficult holiday.

I initially found Valentine’s Day sad, then after a few years (as I was still single), I was annoyed or angered by it – then after a few more years (still single), it just stopped bothering me – I’d say this was some time around my mid or late 40s, age-wise.

I was kind of apathetic about this holiday by around my late 40s. These days, I actually kind of enjoy Valentine’s Day.

In my family, when I was growing up, Valentine’s Day was not just about romantic love; my Mom used to give us (my siblings and myself) Valentine’s (cards and candy), and as I got older, my Dad usually gives me a Valentine’s card, I send them either via snail mail or on social media to my sister, she sends them to me, and I sometimes give my Dad a card.

You don’t have to have a boyfriend or a husband to celebrate the holiday. You can still send cards or candy to family or friends.

My point being, as time goes by, the holiday loses its sting – at least it did for me. You may even come to enjoy it, the more you accept the fact that marriage hasn’t happened for you. I’ve actually come to enjoy Valentine’s.

This year, I bought a couple of bags of chocolate candy on sale prior to the holiday; they are heart-shaped chocolates in red- colored wrappers, and I had a handful on Valentine’s Day. I treated myself, and it felt good.

I don’t know where you are in acceptance of your singles status, but if you’re still struggling, know that with the passage of time, it will probably get easier for you.

(Link): Singles: Don’t Let Valentine’s Day Wreck Your Life By Lisa Anderson

Excerpts:

….I chose long ago to face February 14th without fear. If you’re single with no romantic prospects in sight, here are a few ideas for how to do the same.

It’s OK to be sad. Valentine’s Day is marketed for couples, and if you don’t have a plus-one, it’s easy to feel left out. Whether you’ve been overlooked in love, you’ve recently walked through a breakup or divorce, or perhaps the love of your life has died, love lost is something to be grieved.

Don’t be ashamed to give yourself the time and space you need.

Women in the Regions Turn to Social Media to Find Friendships and Community

Women in the Regions Turn to Social Media to Find Friendships and Community  (Australia) 

Oh this isn’t just an issue in Australia.

Middle aged (especially single women) find it difficult to make platonic friendships with other adults in the United States.

I’ve seen a lot of articles in the last few years that more and more Americans are either deciding not to marry at all, or are postponing it until they’re older.

Some married adults have found marriage unfulfilling and lonely – so they’d like to make more platonic friends to get their emotional needs met.

(Link): Women in the Regions Turn to Social Media to Find Friendships and Community 

ABC Goldfields / Elsa Silberstein
Feb 2022

April Garforth, like her other female friends in their 40s, is sick of going on online dates with underwhelming men.

She’s created a small Facebook group — open to friends-of-friends — to find people in her region of outback Western Australia to accompany her on spontaneous activities.

“With dating apps like Tinder, and things like that, you can meet a significant other. But with friends, it’s harder to reach out and make those connections,” April says.

“So I was talking to a friend of mine and I was saying, ‘You know, there really needs to be a Tinder for friends’.

“I’m really just looking for people to go on adventures with.”

Why Making Friends in Midlife Is So Hard By Katharine Smyth

Why Making Friends in Midlife Is So Hard By Katharine Smyth

(Link – article on The Atlantic): Why Making Friends in Midlife Is So Hard

I thought I was done dating. But after moving across the country, I had to start again—this time, in search of platonic love.

January 12, 2021

[The author discusses meeting with some other adults and feeling socially awkward at moments. She mentions breaking up with a guy she moved cross country for, and she found herself alone again.]

…But I saw now that I would have to start that dispiriting process over again, this time in search not of love but of friendship—and at the age of 40, no less, a decidedly late time in life to be seeking new soulmates.

According to “The Friendship Report,” a global study commissioned by Snapchat in 2019, the average age at which we meet our best friends is 21—a stage when we’re not only bonding over formative new experiences such as first love and first heartbreak, but also growing more discerning about whom we befriend.

Even more important, young adulthood is a time when many of us have time.

The average American spends just 41 minutes a day socializing, but Jeffrey A. Hall, a communication-studies professor at the University of Kansas, estimates that it typically takes more than 200 hours, ideally over six weeks, for a stranger to grow into a close friend.

As we get older, the space we used to fill with laughter, gossip, and staying up until the sky grew light can get consumed by more “adult” concerns, such as marriage, procreation, and fully developed careers—and we tend to end up with less of ourselves to give.

God’s Big Message at Christmas: You Are Not Alone, by Chris Field (Churches Need To Reach Out More to the Singles In Their Communities)

God’s Big Message at Christmas: You Are Not Alone, by Chris Field (Churches Need To Reach Out More to the Singles In Their Communities)

I have mixed feelings about posting a link to this (way below).

I know if you are literally alone – if you are a never married, divorced, or widowed adult, and you either don’t have children, or you are not on good terms with your biological family (or many of them are deceased or out of state), that it may be hard to feel positive about the message below.

Snowman

I  know it can be difficult to hear Christians writing “you’re not alone, God is with you” if you are, as I said, literally, physically alone in your apartment or home.

It would be nice to have an actual, breathing human sitting across from you, rather than have to rest in the idea that there’s this God in Heaven who cares about you, and have to take that on faith.

I do think Christians (churches especially) need to step up to the plate more and make more of an effort to include those adults who live alone, who aren’t married, who don’t have a nuclear family of their own…

Rather than doing things like over-focusing on nuclear families, and closing churches down on Christmas Day (yes, some churches have been known to (Link):  withhold services on Christmas Day, because they assume every one is at home watching their biological child and spouse opening presents under the tree).

Never mind that some sites say that (Link): half or over half of the American population is now single – singles out-number married couples, and that stat won’t be changing any time soon, all the focus on Nuclear Families is excluding about half the American population.

So, what are you members of churches out there doing to reach out to the lonely and single in your areas?

Churches, you can stop it any time now with slobbering all over the married- with- children couples already. The “Nuclear Family” has received the “lion’s share” of affection and attention from churches and Christian culture for far too long now.

Time to start acknowledging the single and childless among you.

Churches have been losing in attendance in the last so many years – if they want to increase attendance, it might help if they start focusing on single adults.

(Link):  God’s Big Message at Christmas: You Are Not Alone, by Chris Field

Dec 25, 2021

Loneliness a terrible thing.

And as is often pointed out, at no time is loneliness more poignantly felt by scores of people than at Christmas.

If there’s an upside to the whole COVID fiasco, it’s that many of us had the opportunity last Christmas to experience a little bit of what that’s like. Millions of people had to stay separated from family — and we quickly realized that it’s not so great.

And it should have served as a wake-up call for those who call themselves followers of Jesus.

31% of Americans Experience Loneliness Daily; 1 in 5 Practicing Christians Say the Same: Study – article by Leonardo Blair

31% of Americans Experience Loneliness Daily; 1 in 5 Practicing Christians Say the Same: Study – article by Leonardo Blair

The church should act as friends and family to all – but do most churches do this? No.

Most Christians expect that you run out, marry, create your own nuclear family and get most to all companionship via that marriage/family.

Those Christians and the rest then sit around on social media, podcasts, and blogs complaining and shaming anyone who doesn’t marry or have children.

They choose to complain about an issue rather than look for or implement solutions, or minister to people who cannot, or do not, ever marry, have children of their own, or have a nuclear family.

I have more commentary below this excerpt:

(Link): 31% of Americans experience loneliness daily; 1 in 5 practicing Christians say the same: study

by Leonardo Blair

Loneliness is being experienced by 31% of U.S. adults daily and Christians aren’t doing much better, new research from the Barna Group suggests.

Data for the research done in partnership with behavioral scientist Susan Mettes and the evangelical polling firm Barna was collected through online surveys from 1,003 U.S. adults from Feb. 18 to March 2, 2020, and 1,000 U.S. adults from April 28 to May 5, 2020.

Single at Thanksgiving

Single at Thanksgiving

Several web pages linked to below:

(Link): How to Cope When You Are Alone on Thanksgiving

Excerpts:

by Arlin Cuncic

…Whatever the reason for being alone, there are ways that you can feel less lonely.

Thanksgiving

 Accept Being Alone
Accepting being alone doesn’t necessarily mean staying home and feeling lonely. There are many things that you can do on Thanksgiving that put you in the company of people, or connect you with people, while you are still alone.

Be Productive
Make it a productive day and get your house organized. Clean out closets, get the paperwork in order, make to-do lists, and generally get control of the little details in your life. You will end the day with a feeling of accomplishment, and the ability to focus on your relationships with others because your life is manageable.

‘I Stopped Having Sex or Relationships for Ten Years. Here’s What Happened’ by Anonymous

‘I Stopped Having Sex or Relationships for Ten Years. Here’s What Happened’ by Anonymous

(Link): ‘I stopped having sex or relationships for ten years. Here’s what happened’ by Anonymous

[The woman author in London describes having been in two relationships that broke up because both men cheated on her. She then quit her job, volunteered at a charity in another nation, came back to London and changed to yet another job and made other changes in her life]

Yet one thing eluded me. I couldn’t form a romantic attachment to men. I found men attractive and felt sexual energy towards some.

I enjoyed flirting but avoided sex out of fear it would cause an emotional attachment.

For the next decade of my life, from the age of 35 to 45, I had no relationships, one night stands or dalliances that would throw me off balance.

Wife Hospitalized with Covid Comes Home to Find Husband Dead from Virus

Wife Hospitalized with Covid Comes Home to Find Husband Dead from Virus

This poor lady. Condolences to her.

One reason I am posting this is to highlight that there are no guarantees in life – getting married is not some kind of magic spell that will make you immune to heartache or loneliness.

I’ve seen marriage-pushing conservatives, both secular and Christian, promote marriage by creating podcasts or blog posts trying to “scare” single adult into getting married by saying things like “If you don’t marry, you’ll die alone!”

After Covid became a thing, marriage-idolater Brad Wilcox, of the National Marriage Project and Institute for Family Studies, began publishing anti-singles hit pieces, saying how married people were doing better in the pandemic (no, they are not. See links at the end of this post).

You can get married but still end up alone – for one, if your spouse dies from Covid.

If the virus were a sentient being, it wouldn’t pause when it comes to you and think, “Well, I’m not going to get into this person’s respiratory system, because they’re married!”

You can be married all live long day and still end up dying – or your spouse could die before you do, leaving you single once more.

Time for Christians to stop marketing marriage as some kind of cure-all for everything that could ail a person.

(Link): Wife Hospitalized with Covid Comes Home to Find Husband Dead from Virus

by Jackie Salo
August 26, 2021

A Florida woman says she returned home from battling COVID-19 in the hospital to a “nightmare” scene with her husband dead after also contracting the virus.

Lisa Steadman, 58, said she was horrified to walk in Wednesday to discover her 55-year-old husband Ron’s body in the bedroom of their home in Winter Haven, Fox13 News reported.

Loneliness: Coping With the Gap Where Friends Used to Be by Olivia Laing

Loneliness: Coping With the Gap Where Friends Used to Be by Olivia Laing

(Link): Loneliness: Coping With the Gap Where Friends Used to Be

by Olivia Laing
July 18, 2021

Friendships can be difficult, and lockdowns have made them even harder to maintain. But we should cherish them

Almost every day for the past few months, I’ve told my husband I am lonely. Obviously I’m glad that he’s around.

What I miss are my friends. In the first lockdown, we stayed in touch with Zoom dates, which were awkward, often drunk and occasionally very joyful.

Those days are long gone. I’ve returned to texting, and though I’m often deep in four or five conversations at once, it isn’t the same as being together.

In the past year, there was a difficult bereavement in my family, and work has been harder than normal. None of these things are unique or insurmountable but the isolation has left me feeling almost capsized by anxiety and paranoia.

…But a lack of friends is a growing problem, in Britain and America alike. A  (Link): recent study, conducted by the American Enterprise Institute, suggests that the proportion of people who can name six close friends has dropped from 55% to 27% since the 1990s, while people who have no close friends at all had risen from 3% to 12%.

Celebrating Milestones in the Lives of Single Adults – by Anna Broadway

Celebrating Milestones in the Lives of Single Adults – by Anna Broadway

A few years ago, I did a blog post or two with similar content – pointing out how churches keep on ignoring or minimizing singles by ignoring them and their accomplishments while forcing everyone to acknowledge (generally during Sunday morning church services) the milestones of married parents (e.g., announcing pregnancies, Mother’s Day celebrations, etc).

There’s nothing like that for single adults. And it’s tiresome when you’re a single.

It’s tiresome to walk into a church regularly and see the pastor or whomever in the church acknowledge marriages, new births, etc. (and this is usually done during church services where you’re part of a captive audience, and it’s done from the pulpit, so you don’t have a choice but to listen to it), but they never congratulate the adult singles in the adult singles’ lives for their milestones (e.g., gaining another college degree, buying a first home alone, getting a job promotion, etc).

Most churches unfairly only recognize marriages and “baby-making” – it’s absolutely infuriating.

(Link): It’s the Summer of Weddings. Here Are Other Milestones We Can Celebrate.

Excerpts:

by Anna Broadway
June 14, 2021

The church has a unique opportunity to recognize markers of spiritual growth in our communities.

…But watching the joyous announcements and photos of this season triggered an internal battle over my status as a single woman and my “success” in adult life. As I learned from (Link): 17 months of researching Christian singleness around the world, many cultures deem marriage a mark of maturity into adulthood, a view that too often sidelines single people.

The Bible takes a different view of maturity: one based on a relationship with Christ rather than with another person. The apostle Paul, for example, called believers to develop certain qualities rather than hit certain life markers. That ought to have significant implications for what and how we celebrate.